what cost freedom
by Ubom Mata
Summary: Not many people know about the war, and that is one of the Central Intelligence Confederation's greatest successes. Peter Kippington, a rising diplomat, is caught in the middle and must make hard choices between peace and truth, freedom and justice.
1. Chapter 1

They were catapulting geodudes.

Most of them fell short and would not get past the ditches. Some landed in the shallow cesspool at the back of their trench, and Eldron watched leisurely as his Lotad covered one with mold. It worked just like in the vids. The mold appeared in patches, covering the joints first so that the rock pokemon was immobilized then slowly dissolving the body into soil. It was long, but very clean. The mold was up to its eyeballs when a bloodcurdling scream ripped Eldron from his reverie.

"Piiiikaaaa!"

A geodude had landed on a pikachu's head. Tearing it, crushing it. Electricity did nothing, the cute stubby yellow arms flailing wildly did nothing. An ear skipped and turned over, a bloody bit of flesh at Eldron's feet. "Lotad," he whispered, and pointed at the geodude. The lotad continued to patiently dissolve the first geodude. Dumb beast. "Lotad!"

Now it heard him, and turned slowly to begin on the new target. Even as mold enveloped it, the geodude pounded further on the helpless pikachu. Finally the rock pokemon, thoroughly immobilized, fell off. Pikachu sparked by reflex. Eldron could tell just by looking that there was nothing conscious going on in that newly misshapen head. There was a hole in it where fluids kept on rising and spilling, and another hole in the face--this one had been there a while, but it was disfigured so he didn't recognize it at first--where small cries of "pika pik pik pik pik pi..." were, then were not.

"What in god's name..."

Suddenly he felt detached from his body, and he realized that he knew this scene. He would berate Dan, the new recruit, for bringing a pikachu to fight rock pokemon. Then he would find out that the pikachu was Dan's personal pet, and Dan would spend the rest of his life (fifteen minutes) crying. Eldron would be stuck commanding fifteen pokemon, seven of which would die. Then he would wake up to find his pikachu, the one he bought out of guilt, staring at him like he was death itself. His children would comfort the pikachu and wonder what was happening. "It's nothing, nothing to worry about," his wife would say, but she too would wonder. He never told her what happened during the war.

Never again, they all said. They had shouted it in unison after the war, in all countries, and they meant it too. We will work through our conflicts peacefully, and our pokemon and our sons and daughters will be safe at home. And that was what Eldron did every day after tepidly kissing his wife goodbye and dropping the children off at the academy. He worked for peace. He worked so he could pretend that "never again" was more than just a slogan. So that it just might never happen again.

But sometimes, he doubted.

Eldron hardly slept the last years of his life. When he was at home--which was rare--he would come in at midnight, eyes red and puffy, collapse on his bed unconscious until six, when he would get up, shave, change the suit he had neglected to remove the previous night, and go out again. His wife had stopped asking what he was doing at work. It was all classified.

That was why when he died at the age of forty-six of a heart attack, his fourteen year old son and nine year old daughter hardly missed him. "He's in a better place," the minister told them, and no one could tell if it was a joke when the son asked 'what place could be better than the pentagon'?

The son grew up. Peter. His pikachu died, then the wartortle they got to replace it died as well. They affected him more than his father's death. He went to Harvard, where he got girls by talking about how mysterious his dad's work was and making up stories about it and claiming he wanted to do the same. Eventually, as graduation neared, he talked himself down into something safer but almost as sexy.

"Your reason for wanting to join the diplomatic corps?"

Hormones. But he told them something about serving his country and having a passion for helping the world and looking up to his father, who served long and well. He had told his story in every bar and tavern across Cambridge, so of course they believed it. He got in.

"I've heard of your father," said a superior who was passing in the hallways. "He was vital in keeping the ice wars from shattering into something military."

"I'm happy to know he was missed here as well as at home, Mr. Dibbins," said Peter.

"Call me Ted. And realize that I've been training for twenty two years to pick up on lies."

Peter held his smile stolidly into the ever-lengthening silence. He felt out of control. First time in how many years?

"Well, um... umm... I didn't want to offend--"

Mr Dibbins--Ted-- leaned in close, as if the walls had ears, and whispered. "Stop. Right now. I don't want an apology. I want you to get better."

"Am I sick?" What a stupid question. Clearly, he was shaken.

"No, you're just not good enough for the circles you're going to be playing in. If you tell them America wants peace, they goddam better believe that America wants peace."

"But... we do want peace, right?"

"Of course." Ted smiled the most sincere smile on heaven and earth.


	2. Chapter 2: plausible deniability

The room almost stopped, almost for a second. The tufts on the rich fur carpets pointed upwards, seeking to fill the silence. Five suits crinkled imperceptibly, their wrinkles flattening themselves out so as not to be run roughshod by an absent-minded hand.

Peter felt exposed. A leper.

"Mr. Kippington is confused, sirs." Tam's look said it all.

"Yes, sirs," said Peter. "I am very confused. My..."

_Stop._

"My associate is new in our organization."

The agent wasn't really nondescript once he stared at you long enough. The eyebrows were slightly thinner than average, and the bridge of his nose stuck out a little on the left side, and then the close cropped hair. Half an inch, three quarters in the back. His eyes were small.

"I take it your orders are clear enough now?" he said. Tam nodded, but the man motioned him down. "I want to hear it from Mr. Kippington"

Peter swallowed. "Yes, sir. Very clear sir."

"Good."

The agent turned, and the other two followed close behind, one on either side. At the door, he--they--stopped. "Peter."

"Yes?"

It was a laconic voice. Ironic. "Your father should have spent more time at home."

The fur was the sickly brown of dried blood. The rest of the room was a fresh, dripping red. When the door was safely shut Tam turned and stared like an alpha wolf at a wounded pack. Peter thought of the internship he had been offered at a washington think tank. _Everywhere you go, they eat their own._ _There are no--_

"If an order was meant to be delivered in writing," said Tam in his most professional voice, "They would have delivered it in writing. If it was meant to be shared beyond us, they would not have used a clean room. And if you were meant to know that man's name, you would have been told. Do you know what plausible deniability means, Peter?"

Peter shook his head.

"Then look it up. I'm not a goddam dictionary."


End file.
